HELP! My Dad is trying HCG and I need to talk him out of it

I would be concerned from a cardiac standpoint. If your electrolytes get out of whack, you can be in real danger. I know someone who tried it for awhile and she ended up with atrial fibrilation (irregular heart beat). Aside from that, she lost the weight and gained it back and then was ultimately taken off the HCG and she weighed more than when she started out. If you simply follow a very low calorie diet without the meds you would probably lose weight, so the meds are just money spent. I recently read "Eat to Live" and it is about eating healthy for disease prevention (diabetes, cholesterol, cancer) and weight loss. I think it gave some excellent reasons for eating healthier and has some success stories in the book. I have recommended that all my family members read the book. I don't have any hard facts on HCG, but I do think it is dangerous and if you search some of the forums you will probably find some links with useful information. I don't like it when doctors sell stuff - they are making money off it and that is their incentive.

I just did a quick HCG search in the forums and didn't find anything. Maybe FS removed them, I know they removed the diet from here.

First, oral HCG is necessarily pointless - it's only biologically active if injected. Taken orally, it simply gets digested and does nothing.

Second, even if you receive the injections, decades of controlled, double-blind testing have found no evidence to support any of the proponent's claims. Pasted from an older thread:

The claims regarding HCG have been studied extensively. The results from several decades of research have found no difference between this protocol and a very low calorie diet with a placebo. This is just some of the research:

"We conclude that there is no scientific evidence that HCG causes weight-loss, a redistribution of fat, staves off hunger or induces a feeling of well-being. Therefore, the use of HCG should be regarded as an inappropriate therapy for weight reduction, particularly because HCG is obtained from the urine of pregnant women who donate their urine idealistically in the belief that it will be used to treat an entirely different condition, namely infertility."

Subjects receiving HCG injections showed no advantages over those on placebo in respect of any of the variables recorded. Furthermore, weight loss on our diet was similar to that on severely restricted intake. We conclude that there is no rationale for the use of HCG injections in the treatment of obesity.

There was no statistically significant difference in the means of the two groups in number of injections received, weight loss, percent of weight loss, hip and waist circumference, weight loss per injections, or in hunger ratings. HCG does not appear to enhance the effectiveness of a rigidly imposed regimen for weight reduction.

Serial measurements were made of weight, skin-fold thickness, dropout rates, reasons for dropping out, and patient subjective response. There was no statistically significant difference between those receiving HCG vs placebo during any phase of this study.

Other reported adverse effects of treatment with HCG include the following:* An ovarian overstimulation syndrome, with edema and cyst formation in the ovary, and intra-abdominal hemorrhage requiring laparotomy.* Multiple pregnancy, with an increased prevalence of immaturity, abortion, perinatal death and preeclampsia.* Ascites, pleural effusion and other symptoms caused by salt and water retention and edema formation.* Hypercoagulability and thromboembolism.

Because HCG is ineffective in the treatment of obesity, patients may become discouraged and so not seek or accept treatment that might help them. HCG injections are expensive in both patients' time and physicians' fees and may therefore divert resources from areas of real contribution to the health of the community.

Because HCG "therapy" in the management of obesity has been thoroughly discredited and thus rejected by the majority of the medical community, any practitioner whose patients experience undesirable side effects as a consequence of such therapy may face civil and even criminal liability.

Very low calorie diets (VLCD) of 400 to 800 kcal/day appear attractive as they generally show an increase in weight loss from 0.2 to 0.5 kg/week found with the traditional diet to 1.5 to 2.0 kg/week. Early use of very low calorie diets with poor quality protein and loose medical supervision resulted in about 60 deaths, many of which were attributed to loss of lean body mass and in particular, cardiac muscle atrophy. Although current very low calorie diets are presumed safe, concern regarding preservation of lean body mass (LBM) remains. Investigators have used exercise to slow the depletion of lean body mass during very low calorie diets; however, the results are not conclusive.

Bolding the important part - unless steps are taken to preserve lean mass, like getting most of your 500 calories from protein, and doing some exercise, you may be risking having your own heart muscle used for fuel. If your father is obese, this is, frankly, unlikely, but it's a pointless risk, no matter how remote.

So I needed to put in my two cents on this post about the hcg. I did the hcg diet about two years ago. Sure I lost like 34 lbs. in like a month, but I have never felt so bad in my whole life. I am a nail tech. and my arms were so weak that sometimes I couldnt file my clients nails. I would get winded going from my door to my car (about 10 feet) I was not in good shape. And not only did I gain all the weight back ( i was extremely careful with my diet after hcg) but I ended up gaining way more than before I did the diet. This happened about 5 months after the diet was over. I do not recommend this diet to anyone!

The drops were pulled off the market. The injections are the real deal. I have done the HCG injections twice and I hate that diet and I will never do it again. I hate having to NOT eat certain foods. I think for a very obese person the injections might help give the person the jump start they need to be healthier, and the risks of HCG are minimal compared to the incredible health risks of being obese. However, I would NOT recommend the diet to anyone who is just overweight and not obese.

If your parents are anything like my parents... I'd start off with a talk with your mother. My mother does all the cooking and my dad eats what she cooks and puts on a plate in front of his face. He needs to learn how to eat healthy and not starve him self half to death or even death as HCG has the potential of doing. If your father isn't buying the groceries and cooking the meals he is at the mercy of the person feeding him.

I am not an advocate of HCG but I did it a couple years ago and lost about 60 pounds. I couldn't even function, thank god i wasn't working at the time but I was going to college on line and could not even think It seemed like I was in a brain fog. If your dad works or is active at all he wont be able to keep up the low calories plus as soon as you go off the drops and start back eating normal the weight comes right back. I would try to talk to your dad and tell him it is not worth it.

I actually work for a doctor/mircrobiologist and am the facilitator for an HCG support group. We have had more then 500 people go through this diet and when people are loosing the weight, they do not look gaunt, do not feel hungry and actually loose weight. But, this is not a diet and is a medical protocol and must be done correctly and not played around with. I have done it 3 times and am in the best health at 51 years old of my life. I eat healthy, clean fats, low carbs, as organic as possible and all because of HCG. I think it is amazing, but is a medical protocol not a diet.

Men need a minimum of 1400 calories daily just for normal day to day body functions. A dietician or nutritionist would be a good person for him to talk to, or maybe see a different doctor of a second opinion. 800 (or whatever is below the minimum requirements) is ok for a few days, but it's not sustainable, our bodies are not made to work that way.

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain.

I had a friend who lost a lot of weight doing that. Afterwards, she had some family issues, fell off the diet and gained all the weight on plus. It is very sad how depressed she is about how things have turned out.

I went on HCG giving myself a shot everyday lost 50 pounds and messed up my hormones messed up my blood pressure and I ended up having to go to a heart specialist . All the doctors told me its bad stuff never been approved by food and drug company

your symtoms sound like you may have an allergy to gluten. gluten is things like wheat and oat products like bread and pastas. Or colitis that can be aggivated by eating tomatoes and acidic foods or some ...

It depends on my mood. I try to do a couple minutes - if only something like yoga - in the morning when I wake up. Normally I go on walks so I do those during the day (mid morning or mid afternoon). If ...